Public school district taps world-renowned architects for multipurpose arena

Public school districts aren't necessarily known as promoters of world-class, innovative architecture. But in a suburban district south of Atlanta, the local schools are driving a wave of eye-catching designs.

The local government responsible is Clayton County Public Schools, a densely populated district with 51,000 students and 67 schools across a 142-square-mile area. The school board's go-to designer for new buildings is Perkins & Will, a Chicago-based firm that's ranked by trade publications as the nation's second-largest architecture firm by revenue.

The latest product of this partnership is an 8,000-seat arena on the site of a demolished Sears store in Morrow, Georgia. Unlike many similar facilities, the top priority in the design of the Arena at Southlake is hosting graduation ceremonies.

"Most big public school districts in metro Atlanta spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year renting graduation facilities," Jared Serwer, a principal with Perkins & Will, told CoStar News.

Clayton County has a dozen high schools that will use the arena for graduation ceremonies, and its interior can be adjusted to reflect the identity of the school hosting the event. A wall near the main lobby is covered by a large fabric material made of stainless steel. The fabric is embedded with lights that can adopt the colors of the school using the arena.

Innovative and creative architecture is not a new concept in Clayton County. The local public library system built branches in the 1990s with unusual designs. The main library branch in Jonesboro, for example, features an exterior skin of metal siding crafted to resemble the black-and-white covers of vintage school notebooks. The building, designed by the Atlanta firm Mack Scogin Merrill Elam, won the American Institute of Architects' National Award for Excellence in 1991.

As for building its own arena, the Clayton County school district reasoned it could be used for more than just graduations — and, in turn, could be a new source of revenue, Serwer said. The local chamber of commerce contributed to the arena's construction costs, as did the local chapter of Junior Achievement, a nonprofit that is renting space in the arena for an office.

The arena can be rearranged to stage basketball games, and Clayton County Public Schools officials believe the Arena at Southlake will be considered a strong contender to host Georgia high school basketball tournaments.

The facility can also host other events, such as conferences and fine arts performances. It also has a rooftop terrace attached to conference rooms for smaller gatherings. Its location near two major Atlanta interstate freeways and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is expected to make it convenient for groups from across the Atlanta area seeking space.

"Most of these kinds of facilities are in the northern area of Atlanta, so having something south of the city is attractive to the rest of the state," Serwer said.

The school district, with a large population of students from low-income backgrounds who hail from more than two dozen countries, also hired Perkins & Will to design two large high schools. One, the $90 million Morrow High School, opened in 2022, and the second, the $246 million North Clayton High School, is still under construction.

These aren't garden-variety high school buildings. Perkins & Will designed the 350,000-square-foot Morrow High School in Ellenwood as a long, curving structure for a specific reason: The district's previous superintendent, Morcease Beasley, wanted students to walk more.

"Obesity is an area of concern for any community with a high number of low-income households," Beasley said in a statement.

Morrow High School features an exterior of largely gray brick with angular walls that reveal large windows in unexpected places. Concrete columns not only provide structural support but also serve as a design feature. The columns lift sections of the building off the ground, creating plenty of outdoor space for students to gather.

North Clayton High School in College Park is designed to resemble an "X," with the main entrance in the center and classroom wings branching out from it. The school is to be set within a larger campus that includes tennis courts, walking trails, an indoor athletics training facility and a 3-hole golf course.

The golf course, a rare amenity among public high schools in Georgia, was another idea by Beasley, who wanted something to set the school apart, Steven Brown, associate principal at Perkins & Will, told CoStar News.

The new Morrow High School was the first of what may lead to more new school construction, depending on whether Clayton County voters approve a special local sales tax. The new facility offers an example of what the tax can provide for residents — a replacement for the 60-year-old former Morrow High School building that felt like "a labyrinth," Brown said.

Beasley "told us that he was tired of building red brick boxes," Brown said, "and that he wanted something different."

Distinctive buildings have their own stories. Snapshots is an occasional feature showcasing one or more of them.